That means post-factual – and has just been selected Germany’s word of the year 2016.

“This awkward adjective describes the development in which public debates are defined more and more by temperament and feelings than by facts. This may not be a term used in everyday speech, the experts admit, but crucial here is that it reflects central events that have taken place this year – from Brexit to Trump.”

You know, like the appropriate or suitable compensation that the German government will now how to pay to the power companies it expropriated after the infamous (and ongoing) Fukushima Panic Attack of 2011?

Of course what this appropriate or suitable compensation will actually end up being once the non-atomic dust settles is quite another matter. Something tells me it’s going to be a whole lot. Hey, nichts ist umsonst. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yes, this is one isolated case. Albeit one particularly disgusting one. And one which the growing hordes of “deplorable” Germans out here now perceive as being among an ever-increasing number of them. This is also one that will be hard for the state media channels to ignore. So it will be interesting to see how they will manage to ignore it anyway (you have to read a bit further before finding “the suspect reportedly came from Afghanistan as an unaccompanied refugee” here, for instance).

A German Lunar X-Prize team’s announcement that it plans to send two mobile probes to the Moon to inspect the lunar rover left behind by the Apollo 17 mission has been exposed as a hoax because everybody knows that these Apollo moon landings never took place in the first place.

The team hopes to land its probes about 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 km) from the touch down site of Apollo 17 in the Taurus-Littrow valley. From there, the vehicles will drive to within 200 meters (656 feet) of the Apollo rover and inspect it remotely…

The Google Lunar X-Prize requires its competitors to land their probes on the Moon in 2017, which gives us something to look forward to next year. Once the probe sends back its high-definition pictures of the lunar rover, you can happily show them to your annoying Moon Truther friends.

It was only 900,000 users, after all. For only a day or two. And is probably only just the beginning, so don’t worry. Be happy. And now sitzen machen!

Cyber attacks from Russia are now so common that Germany must learn to cope with them as part of daily life, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday, after Europe’s top economy suffered its largest ever online assault.

She then moved on to more pressing matters. Like preparing to take a tough stand on the UK for Brexit or worrying about hate-speech on Facebook. Stuff like that.

“Such cyber attacks, or hybrid conflicts as they are known in Russian doctrine, are now part of daily life and we must learn to cope with them.”

German weapons manufacturing company Heckler & Koch has announced a major change of business strategy.

In the future the company will only sell its weapons to countries that are “unequivocally democratic” and “clearly not corrupt.” A frantic search has now begun by Heckler & Koch customer care professionals to locate any countries out there that might possibly meet these requirements before the liquidator is called in but the results have been less than encouraging and time is running out fast.

Late last year, a Syrian woman gave birth to a girl at a former hospital that had been repurposed into a refugee shelter in Duisburg, Germany. She and her husband had only recently arrived in Germany and wanted to honor their new home. So, they named their daughter Angela Merkel.

But less than a month before the infant’s first birthday, the Al-Hamza family’s future in their adopted country isn’t looking so sure. According to the Bild newspaper, the family was told their asylum application had been rejected by Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Instead, the Al-Hamza family has been offered “subsidiary protection,” a separate legal status that protects people from deportation for an initial period of one year but does not allow them to bring their family to Germany. They may stay longer if they are shown to be working and learning German to a sufficient level.

“There are no indications that the Syrian state puts everyone under general suspicion of belonging to the opposition.”

Are we having that Christmas spirit yet, Germany? It’s time to find Nazi symbolism in supermarket TV ads that make a pitch for spending more time with your children during the holidays. Seek and you shall find, I always say. But don’t forget to take your medication regularly, I also always say.

A Volvo shown in the 84-second clip has the number plate MU SS 420. “SS” is forbidden on German number plates because it is synonymous with the Schutzstaffel, the Nazis’ paramilitary “protection squadron”. The number 420 is a common abbreviation – especially in far-right circles in the US – for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s birthday, 20 April.

As in rent a social democrat? Sure, OK. But who would want to do that?

I always thought that “social” was code for “here’s something for free.”

According to a German media report, the social democratic SPD party is granting access to ministers and officials in exchange for payments of up to 7,000 euros. Experts say this may violate the law on political parties.

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
- Frederic Bastiat

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
- Margaret Thatcher

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

It is like information theory; it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise. The intelligence agencies call it disinformation. If you can float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone's contact with reality, probably your own included.
- Philip K. Dick

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
- Henry Kissinger

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

German schadenfreude knows no bounds, particularly when it comes to the United States. The country loves to feel superior to a superpower like America. Yet Germany also harbors a childish infatuation with Obama — one which has little political grounding. The reasons are psychological. …The criticism of America has always been a bit infantile. One is familiar with the theory from psychoanalysis, when people talk about transference, or when suppressed feelings or emotions are overcome by projecting them onto others. It may work for a while, improving one’s feeling of self-worth by devaluing an imagined adversary. But it always falls short. Which is why the ritual must be constantly carried out anew.
- Jan Fleischhauer

Intellectuals, in the words of the writer Eric Hoffer, "cannot operate at room temperature." They are excited by daring opinions, clever theories, sweeping ideologies, and utopian visions of the kind that caused so much trouble during the 20th century. The kind of reason that expands moral sensibilities comes not from grand intellectual "systems" but from the exercise of logic, clarity, objectivity, and proportionality.
- Steven Pinker

The difference between Greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is that the Greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized, and figure as a higher form of sensibility. Their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature... The discovery that the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its pain and failure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to speak) more feminine than the Hellenes had attained to being in the classic period.
- William James

A doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength. Once we understand a thing, it is as if it had originated in us. And, clearly, those who are asked to renounce the self and sacrifice it cannot see eternal certitude in anything which originates in that self.
- Eric Hoffer

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself. If people reach conclusions based on false impressions, they are the ones hurt rather than you, because it is they who are misguided. When someone interprets a true proposition as a false one, the proposition itself isn't hurt; only the person who holds the wrong view is deceived, and thus damaged. Once you clearly understand this, you will be less likely to feel affronted by others, even if they revile you. You can say to yourself, "It seemed so to that person, but that is only his impression."

Archives

Archives

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to Observing Hermann and receive notifications of new posts by email.